Mish - Mash

Okay so clearly it's been a while since my last post. Not so much due to lack of baking...I've had issues uploading photos to my computer (seem to have run out of space..). Also unemployment is taking it's toll..it increases my appetite while sucking away my motivation. It's a bad, bad place. Fortunately the sunny days we've been having lately help to get me moving a bit.

Anyway, today I figured I'd just pop in some photos that have made it on to the computer, and give a sort of run down of what's been made in the past 14 or so days...

Brownies ( I forgot the chocolate chips though! Idiot)
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes (Yummo)
Ginger Crunch (my first ever attempt...tasty but definitely weird..thin...and not so crunchy)
A home made peanut butter cup type thing...little pastry shells with a mix of peanut butter, condensed milk, chocolate and icing sugar for a filling, topped with melted chocolate..yum yum)
Russian Fudge (had to make with raw sugar as I had no white, but it was a good experiment, still works and tastes pretty good..pretty sugary sweet)

I'm getting kind of bored with my baking..I need some new inspiration..to create something different. Looking forward to our first assignment as Russell and Cake... and because I love things in miniature, I think it's going to be fun to get creative with the menu for Viv's baby shower. Yay for babies.

Bowl of brownie

Cookies made by my Dad...using our grannie's recipe

Afternoon tea - minty hot chocolates and marshmallows

Making lemon meringue cupcakes...

...a model assistant!

Workin' 9 til 5

Well actually more like 8 til 4.30, but same dif.

Tomorrow will be the last day of my first official week back at work full time and i am exhausted!! Who knew you office folk worked so hard??

I have been meaning to post about my activities over the weekend but every night i plonk myself down on the couch and am subsequently too lazy to move- slack!

But anyway, better late than never right?

For starters on Friday afternoon this

transformed into this:

and we went to ballet - the last class i'll be able to attend for a while (sob)

We tried to catch some Juno smiles on camera:

 Fat chance with the big sister around....  

On Saturday I went to the Langham with my friends for high tea, which was amazing and highly photo worthy (but of course i forgot my camera!!!) however this shot from the web gives you some idea...

It was so so good, i ate till i felt sick and then i ate some more. There were rum and raisin scones, dainty sandwiches, friands and fruit tarts - it was all exquisitely presented. My friend Liz works at the Langham and organised a great table and we got lots of special attention- fun, fun, fun!

On Sunday, the nerves kicked in and i was a bit anxty thinking about leaving my girls and heading off to work the next day, so.... I baked !!!

Chocolate chippies -a perfect comfort cookie. As is always the way with me and my sister, i had to get creative with the ingredients- drop a few here, add a few there, but the end result was pretty damn good if i do say so myself. So nice to eat on Monday when i was freaking out at my desk....

The rest of the weekend was spent dodging the disgusting weather, watching a lot of Lion King and Toy Story and getting the whole family ready for a full on working week.... by the end of it we were pooped.....

I can't believe that the weekend is about to roll around again already, sure am hoping i get a sleep in

Kate x

ps: Check out the Langham site, if you feel like heading out for a bit of High tea- i recommend it xx

Tuesday's gone...

...gone so long she's almost back again.
It seems my sister and I have a lot in common...looks...talent...............................love of pies.......procrastination...

Last Tuesday we had a baking day in Kate's new kitchen..styley but a little small on bench space...still we managed to come up with a Rhubarb Meringue Pie (mmmm...pie) -with a layer of chocolate thrown in of course-; and a couple of old favourites...Ginger Cake for Phil, and the best ever (truly) Chocolate Caramel Slice, which we've been making since about 1992 when our Dad had a cafe in Milford...these days I like to double the caramel though..sweet sweet sweet.

The pie was basically a Lemon Meringue Pie using rhubarb juice instead of lemon, and because there was a block of chocolate with no other purpose, we melted it down and lined the pastry with a rather hefty layer of the stuff. Kate whipped up a fantastically light and glossy meringue topping..the result was a slightly sloppy, ridiculously sweet, but , in my humble opinion, still pretty damn tasty, pie. (mmmmmm...pie).

 

Okay, so I am really bad at sorting the photos into a beautiful display, I'll sort it out one day, but right now i just don't have the patience. 

Anyway, meanwhile, Juno was either sleeping or just chilling with her bottle, and Rory was on the deck making cupcakes of her own..

 

The ginger cake is fairly simple to make, it's a melt in the pot, stir in the flour, slow bake kind of cake...it can be jazzed up with the addition of pears and/or icing..but this time I left it unadorned, and even though i thought it was slightly overcooked (my preference is always to lean towards raw , not dry), the Light-Thornleys seemed to make a quick demolition job, which i take to mean cake success. Yay. That really is the best part about baking...having people enjoy your food.

As for the chocolate caramel slice...thankfully i left half at Kate's house...once I start eating this, I find it very hard to stop. It was quite soft (the fear of overcooking strikes again..) but I have to say i think i prefer it that way .although perhaps the base could be a bit thicker to support that extra caramel-ly filling... I get such a thrill just looking at the composition of the things we bake too...the colours, the thickness, the whiteness of the meringue, the perfect roundness of a cake...oh..endless raptures

And so the end results:

A cheeky slice of pie...

Cake on a plate

                                                       

Oh caramel heaven....

Clearly when it comes to posting photos, I have no clue. The blog seems to have a mind of it's own where placement of pictures is concerned..

Well. Almost a week late but there it is..the results of a productive day in the kitchen, ignoring my own domestic duties at home. So much more fun.

On another note, because I always like to do what my big sister done, I will lead you here to a beautiful song, which I hadnt heard for awhile but last week, in desperation for some sound, I put an ancient mix tape into my car stereo and heard it again..a perfectly apt love song..and isn't she pretty?

 Which then got me listening to some Mazzy Star, so nineties, so sweet...... so scary how long ago this was!

xx Harriet .

Muddled

This is actually a delayed post, for a recipe I made a few weeks ago, but it tasted so yummy I feel it needs to be included. Prior to this particular week, I had never made an actual mud cake before. I'm not even sure what makes it a mud cake exactly...but after making a successful White Chocolate version for Rory's birthday party, I decided to experiment with the dark chocolate version. These are both from an Australian Women's Weekly cookbook, and both called mud cakes, but the only similarity between them seems to be the ganache on the outside and the fact that they are very rich. Perhaps this is what is meant by mud.

The dark chocolate version contains coffee, bourbon (i used whiskey) and chocolate, all melted together with butter on the stove...I am a serious chocolate freak ..we both are..and seriously i think i could have just consumed this whole mixture as it was, without turning it into a cake. Yum.

Ok it may not look like it here, but trust me...this was delicious

Seeing as this was intended as a gift to cheer up a special friend (baking seems to be the only thing I know what to do when times are tough...for me or anyone else..) , and because I'd been meaning to try this for some time, I figured I had better add the rest of the ingredients and see what the finished product was like.

As instructed, I baked this one in a square tin. It came out quite flat, but this seemed to be how it looked in the picture too so I wasn't too worried...by contrast the white mud cake rose beautifully and was completely different in texture.

I covered the cake in dark chocolate ganache..which was just cream and chocolate melted together...I had to mix in a little icing sugar to firm it up a bit though.
Now, even though I'm a chocolate addict, I'm not actually a huge fan of chocolate cake itself...unless it has real chocolate in it..this cake however is probably one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever tasted (modest, yes)!. And, also one of the few chocolatey things that I couldn't consume all in one go because it is so rich. You really only need a small square. It has a very soft, melt in your mouth sort of texture, with all the flavours of the coffee, whisky and chocolate coming through and then topped off with more chocolate in the icing...so yummy. So pretty.

 

I don't know how successful it was in cheering up my friend...but I was personally very happy with the part I kept for myself (for research purposes of course). I think it would make a great special occasion cake, especially with a little decoration on top.
 Kate later gave it a go too with similar success, although (of course) hers was a tad more alcoholic!
Definitely a keeper though.

x Harriet